Death from the Skies: How Our Solar System will die..

Just as the life on Earth is dependent upon the energy from the sun for sustenance, so too does the fate of our solar system hinge on the sun’s survival. Our sun, which is classified as a yellow dwarf (a misnomer since the sun is neither small, nor yellow), is a middle age star that’s approximately 5 billion years old. As a main-sequence star with a finite lifespan, it will eventually die. This end will occur following the depletion of the last of the hydrogen forged in its core. As this happens, the core of the sun will shrink under its own gravity and become so dense that the helium atoms will begin to collide to form carbon and oxygen atoms. The collisions of said elements will churn out more energy than the current amount that is produced by the sun’s fusion of hydrogen into helium (which in turn, provides nourishment to Earth and all of the neighboring planets in our solar system) .

The extra energy will prove to be the beginning of the end for home (no, I don’t mean your house; I mean the Earth). For one, the core will increase in temperature, causing the sun to swell to hundreds of times its present size, changing its status from a yellow dwarf to a red giant, which will certainly be the end of the two innermost planets of our solar system, Mercury and Venus (both will be incinerated in the initial expansion).

The fate of our home planet is still largely a guessing game. Many scientists speculate that our “blue marble” will become a black husk, and that it will be consumed by our sun. Some others claim that the Earth will be pushed out of orbit, away from the sun; however, regardless of whether Earth survives total incineration during the initial increase in the sun’s surface area, it will no longer be habitable to humans (or most other Earthlings, for that matter). The oceans will boil and evaporate, the atmosphere will be blown away – lost to space forever – while all of the lush vegetation – along with any surviving ecosystems – will be destroyed. All that will be left is a barren wasteland not fit for humans…or any H2O dependent Earth-based life.

Image Credit: Wikipedia

The outer planets, those that are located beyond the orbit of Mars, might have another fate altogether, especially some of the moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Particularly, Europaand Enceladus. Both are known to host frozen bodies of liquid water under their icy surfaces. Europa is believed to contain more water on it than there is water in all of the oceans, lakes, and streams on Earth. Thanks to the huge expansion of the sun, places in the outermost regions of our solar system will have a few million years to thaw out a bit. Think of it as a short springtime after a 10 billion year winter–one last golden era before the sun sets for the final time and perpetual darkness takes over.

But, this could play out another way entirely. As stars lose mass, it’s typical for orbits within a planetary system to change. Any bodies orbiting closer in (the inner planets of the solar system) will experience drag due to the increased density of released gas from the dying sun. Those farther out will sometimes be spared, but will have orbits that slowly expand as the mass interior to their orbit is shed. Planets at different radii will feel the combination of these effects in different ways — causing their orbits to change in ways unrelated to one another. So some stars will migrate and interact with other planets in the system in a way similar to past behaviors (generally, when the solar system was much younger). Any close interactions could potentially cause the planets and moons to collide, either sending them into looping elliptical orbits, or flinging them out of the system entirely (like a rogue planet).

An approximation of Earth and a white-dwarf. (Credit: ESA and NASA)

Meanwhile, on the sun, the helium-burning reaction will produce strong solar winds like sun has never done before. As the material drifts from the sun’s surface and into the surrounding region, it will carry off some of its remaining hydrogen in its outermost layers, forming a brilliant planetary nebula. The resulting nebula will be visible for thousands of years to any civilizations existing within a few hundred light-years of our former stellar neighborhood. Eventually, that too will end when there isn’t enough pressure at the core to keep the process of helium fusion going. What’s left of our precious sun will inevitably contract under its own gravity and become a much more compact, dense star that radiates leftover heat (from the earlier nuclear fusion). At this point, our once life-giving sun will be a white dwarf…and the king of a dead solar system. A white dwarf will eventually cool over a few hundred million years, with the remaining mass being jammed into a sphere approximately the same size as Earth, but much more dense. Eventually, this energy too will dissipate, leaving behind a stellar corpse called a black dwarf; effectively ending the journey of life in our star system (unless something comes along to jump-start it, of course).

At Last wait is over.. Waar is finally releasing on Eid

One of the most highly-anticipated movies of this season, Bilal Lashari’s venture Waaris scheduled to release in all major cinemas across Pakistan this Eidul Azha.

Waar is an action/thriller with a plot centering on counter-terrorism. The cast  includes a mix of industry veterans and some newcomers: Superstar Shaan plays the lead role in the movie, while Shamoon Abbasi, Hamza Ali Abbasi, Aisha Khan, Ali Azmat, Misha Shafi Kamaran Lashari and Nadeem Abbas Rana are also in the film.

Director Bilal Lashari said, “I know that the audience has been waiting to watch Waar for quite some time now. I am a perfectionist by nature and have been fine-tuning several aspects of the movie to make it a truly worth watching experience for the audience. My team and I have put our tears, blood and sweat in this movie to create a masterpiece and an entertaining piece of art. We have raised the bar of everything in this movie from cinematography to shooting to aesthetics and we hope that the audience will enjoy watching this movie just as much as we enjoyed making it.”

This English-language film has been shot at various locations in and outside of Pakistan, from Lahore, to the beautiful hills of Islamabad and the breathtaking Swat Valley, where a major military operation was launched two years ago. Some parts of the film have also been shot in Istanbul, Turkey.

British highway to become internet-connected 'network of sensors' over 50-mile stretch

In a team-up between the UK's Department of Transport, BT and Cambridge start-up Neul, the A14 (which connects Felixstowe to Birmingham) will be transformed into the country's first internet-connected road, with the aim of preparing the country for future tech from wireless toll chargers to automated cars. The smart road will include a network of sensors across a 50-mile segment, with data transmission delivered over white space. Ofcom approved the project yesterday, alongside its plans for the rest of the spectrum space. According to the regulator, "sensors in cars and on the roads monitor the build-up of congestions and wirelessly send this information to a central traffic control system, which automatically imposes variable speed limits that smooth the flow of traffic," Ofcom said. "This system could also communicate directly with cars, directing them along diverted routes to avoid the congestion and even managing their speed."

Initial plans for the A14 aren't focused on these borderline zealous goals just yet. Instead, the project aims to gather information on the cars that use the A14, before focusing on heavy goods vehicles, feeding back to a database that the government's Department for Transport will be able to access. As The Guardian notes, the project would offer a cheaper method for data connectivity and gathering traffic information compared to the mobile network techniques used by companies like TomTom. Instead of connecting to pricey mobile masts, the project will tap into small base stations attached to street lamps or BT exchanges, many of which already exist along the hectic A-road.

Pentagon doesnt care its shut down or not.. Still spend $5billion on Weapons

It has been over a day since the infamous “government shutdown” went into effect, and as expected the world continued to turn.  In fact as Reason.com pointed out about 4.1 million people who work for the federal government, about 80% will still be expected to show up for work.[1]

Another thing that people forget, and that the mainstream media fails to mention is that this same government shutdown scenario has happened 18 times since 1976.[2]

Unfortunately, all of the things that we hate most about the government are still taking place despite the shutdown.  Cops are still roaming the streets harassing people, the IRS is still sending out bills, and the military continues to kill people.  To prepare for the government shutdown, the pentagon spent $5 billion on weapons, just on the day before the shutdown went into effect.

According to Foreign Policy the Pentagon awarded 94 contracts yesterday evening on its annual end-of-the-fiscal-year spending spree, spending more than five billion dollars on everything from robot submarines to Finnish hand grenades and a radar base mounted on an offshore oil platform. To put things in perspective, the Pentagon gave out only 14 contracts on September 3, the first workday of the month.[3]

Sources:

[1] Approximately 80% of Federal Employees Are Still At Work -Reason

[2] Government Has Shut Down 18 Times Since 1976 – Washingtons Blog

[3] Pentagon Spent $5 Billion on Weapons on the Eve of the Shutdown - Foreign Policy

Technology In 2013: Korean tech giants Samsung expects record Q3 profit.

Samsung Electronics Co. said Friday it expected to post a record operating profit of 10.1 trillion won ($9.4 billion) in the third quarter of this year.

The estimate represents a 25 percent increase from a revised operating profit of 8.06 trillion won a year earlier, said the world’s top maker of smartphones, memory chips and flat-panel TVs.

Samsung, the world’s largest technology firm by revenue, was giving earnings guidance before official results later this month.

The estimate marks a 6.0 percent rise from the previous quarter, when the tech behemoth posted an operating profit of 9.53 trillion won on the back of robust sales of its flagship Galaxy 3 smartphone and higher chip prices.

Sales in the July-September period were expected to reach 59 trillion won, up 13 percent from the same period last year.

The company did not provide a net profit estimate in the earnings guidance or a breakdown of figures for each of its business units.

New Research..Scientists Discover Super-Earth with Plasma Water

In recent years, astronomers have discovered a host of strange worlds—they discovered a planet that has a year that is only 4 Earth-hours long, and another that seems to be made almost entirely of diamond. Now, we have another strange planet to add to this list: Gliese 1214 b. This alien planet is nearly six times the size of the Earth, which means that the planet finds itself somewhere between the Earth and our solar system’s ice giants (Uranus and Neptune) in size. What’s more, it is covered with a water-rich atmosphere. That sounds promising, doesn’t it? At first glance, maybe. It is a huge planet with an abundance of water; however, this planet seems to include a strange “plasma form” of water.

Ultimately, it is the high temperature and density of the planet that gives it an atmosphere that is so dramatically different from the atmosphere found on Earth. For starters, Gliese 1214 b orbits its star once every 38 hours, making it 70 times closer than Earth is to the Sun. Since it is so close, the temperatures on the planet reach up to 540 degrees Fahrenheit (280 degrees Celsius), which is a little warm for most all Earth-based life.

The size of the planet is the next thing that contributes to the exotic form of water. Principle investigator Norio Narita  notes that, “as the temperature and pressure are so high, water is not in a usual form (vapor, liquid, or solid), but in an ionic or plasma form at the bottom the atmosphere — namely the interior — of Gliese 1214 b…..At high pressure and high temperature, the behavior of water is quite different from that on the Earth. At the bottom of the water-rich atmosphere of Gliese 1214 b, water should be a super-critical fluid.”

A supercritical fluid is defined as any substance that exists at a temperature and pressure above its critical point (where distinct liquid and gas phases do not exist). Ultimately, this is just another reminder of how strange and amazing our universe is.

Finally Govt is having a serious concerns over this Issue.. Good news..

3G, 4G, LTE up for grabs: Committee decides to offer neutral bands

ISLAMABAD: 

The government has finalised the policy guidelines for auction of the “next generation technology spectrum”, signifying its departure from 3G range while offering a technology neutral band to investors.

Headed by Finance Minister Ishaq Dar, an Advisory Committee on Auction of telecom spectrum discussed at length the recommendations submitted by the Ministry of Information Technology regarding policy directives to introduce next generation mobile services in Pakistan.

After due consideration, the committee finalised the ecommendations for approval of the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, said Minister of State for Information Technology Anusha Rahman Ahmad, after the advisory committee meeting.

It was the first meeting of the advisory committee for the auction of next generation telecom spectrums, marking the beginning of a process that had remained controversial in the past. The previous Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) government too had approved a policy directive, and even issued an information memorandum and auction calendar, but the process became controversial.

The Pakistan Muslim League – Nawaz (PML-N) government had included Rs120 billion as non-tax revenue income on the account of auction of 3G licences in the Federal Budget 2013-14 and wants to complete the process before the close of the current financial year on June 30, 2014.

In a significant policy shift, the new government decided to keep the spectrum technology neutral and has named it “next generation technology spectrum”, which offers a range of opportunities to the investors who could provide 3G, 4G or Linear Technology.

The telecom companies had complained about auctioning only 3G spectrum in the past, while arguing that the world has now moved to 4G. However, the counter argument was that the country could fetch more revenues by gradually moving from 3G to 4G spectrum. This was also one of the reasons that made the previous auction bid unsuccessful.

The policy guidelines encourage infrastructure sharing among the players. It was not immediately clear how many licences will be offered for auction. The previous government had offered three licences, where a single player was allowed to buy a maximum of two licences.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) is expected to lead the auction process. The government has recently appointed Ismail Shah as the chairman of PTA.

Minister of State for Information Technology Rahman said that the government had made efforts to open the (spectrum) auction for both the existing companies and new entrants in the telecom industry. Out of five, four telecom operators were interested in the auction.

In 2007, the Musharraf government had added a clause in the sale agreement of Pakistan Telecommunication Company (PTCL) that barred the country from issuing any spectrum for the next six years. The embargo had expired in March this year.

Rahman said that the issue of determining the base price, preparing the auction plan and the information memorandum were left to international consultants who will be hired to keep the process transparent.

She said the consultants will have the liberty to review the advisory committee-approved policy directives.